Wednesday, August 25, 1999
Hundreds of vets' graves overgrown
BY ALLEN HOWARD and TOM O'NEILL
The Cincinnati Enquirer
ANDERSON TOWNSHIP — No one wants to own the valuable and nationally historic hillside called Hillcrest Cemetery. Unless, of course, someone else pays for it.
While federal, state and local officials play “not us” with financial responsibility for the cemetery — upkeep estimated to cost about $250,000 — it has fallen into disrepair.
Of the 1,388 gravesites on the Veterans Grave Registration file at the Hamilton County Courthouse, 849 are African-American soldiers — veterans of every war from the Civil War to Korea — who were denied burial elsewhere because of their color.
The Hamilton County pro bation department assigns offenders to cut weeds and mow the 73-year-old cemetery as community service, but for all practical purposes, the land on Sutton Road, 1.1 miles from Coney Island, goes unclaimed.
Anderson Township, Hamilton County, state and federal officials agree on this much: Each distances itself from financial responsibility for the cemetery.
Washed-away or broken headstones, open graves, weeds and vandalism all characterize what has happened through the years at Hillcrest. No one — neither government nor individual — has stepped up to settle its ownership.
Current owners are listed in county records as The Hillcrest Cemetery Association, Guy Lancaster, Roy Lancaster and Hamilton County Commissioners.
Hillcrest Cemetery Association Inc. was incorporated in 1926 by Guy Lancaster and listed as defunct Aug. 5, 1991, by then-Ohio Secretary of State Robert Taft for failure to reregister.
The county owns only a 60-foot-wide stretch of land that cuts through the middle of Hillcrest Cemetery but was never used for burials. It was bought to connect Sutton Road with Salem Road during Coney Island's heyday but plans were abandoned when traffic followed Kings Island north. And Anderson could be held responsible only if the cemetery is officially labeled “abandoned,” which hasn't occurred.
That leaves the search for answers and the search for the Lancasters or their heirs.
“I always run into a dead end,” William Stautberg, property manager for Hamilton County, said of officials' search for them.
Lost and found
Jacqueline Griffin, 64, of Colerain Township knows that the grave of her father, Charles Smart, a World War I vet, is somewhere among the weeds and grass and hilly terrain, but she can't find it.
“I was only 2 or 3 years old when he died. My mother told me he was buried there,” Mrs. Griffin said.
Mr. Smart is among the 237 African-American soldiers who were listed on the Veterans Grave Registration file in county records in 1940, but no gravestone was found during a survey of the cemetery in 1988.
Mrs. Griffin did find the grave of her mother, Henrietta Smart, two weeks ago. Mrs. Griffin said her mother was buried there in 1959, among the unknown number of nonveterans there, but she had lost the location because of the condition of the 14-acre cemetery.
The undamaged headstone lies near an oak tree on a hillside.
“She was here on Memorial Day and asked me about her mother's grave,” said Jeff Bellamah, community service field supervisor for the probation department. “A couple of days later when we were cutting grass, we found it and called her.”
The brief histories of veterans who were brought there from as far away as Mississippi, Florida and California, and those of civilians, are written in stone:
• John Henry Edwards, home unknown, was 39 when he served in the Army in World War II.
• McKinley Pace of Ohio (infantry private in Korea) was born on Halloween 1932 and died in May 1971.
• Gordon Cameron of Massachusetts (private in World War II) died at 51, on July 4, 1970.
Tangle of records
Hillcrest's past is tangled in ownership records that are confusing and contradictory.
Union Baptist Church records indicate that the church was given caretaker responsibilities in March 1932. However, county records show that the church became a caretaker in 1966 but gave it up in 1985 because it was too expensive.
John Nolan, chairman of the Union Baptist board of trustees, said the church has never owned any part of the cemetery. He said the church owns five acres adjacent to the cemetery but has not used it for burials. Hillcrest was all but ignored after Union Baptist gave up the maintenance. Ironically, vandals brought attention to the cemetery's poor condition.
In 1986 a skull from an opened casket was tossed onto a rubbish heap. The next year a couple was charged with gross abuse of a corpse and complicity when sheriff's deputies found a skull and other human bones from the cemetery in their car.
Hillside erosion, a problem throughout Anderson Township, has also washed away hundreds of headstones.
David Browning, probation officer supervisor, said his department has been doing upkeep since 1987.
“Many people volunteer to come back after they complete their community service,” Mr. Browning said.
Even though the probation department has significantly improved conditions, many consider its community-service workers a temporary solution.
“We don't have the funds nor the manpower to keep up the maintenance that is needed,” Mr. Bellamah said. “I have three to five people each week, and we have been able to clear about half of it.”
Efforts to help
Local Boy Scout Troop 124 erected a plaque and sign on May 25, 1998, “dedicated to all the veterans.” Around it, an African-American veterans group from Cleveland arranged five smaller American flags.
Steve Rea, who lives nearby, visited one recent afternoon out of curiosity. “I've been driving by that sign for a year and a half,” the New York native said. “I was always curious. It's a terrible shame it's in this condition.”
State law says abandoned public cemeteries (not private or church-affiliated) become the municipality's responsibility. Ninety-nine percent of it falls within Anderson's borders. A small sliver of cemetery land actually is within Cincinnati city limits. But it remains unclear whether Hillcrest is legally public and abandoned.
Anderson Township officials are hoping a meeting next month will resolve the ownership issue.
“We are inviting local, state and federal elected officials, veterans' groups and the owners if we can find them,” said Russ Jackson, Anderson Township Board of Trustees president.
David Aldstadt, director of the Governor's Office of Veterans Affairs, said the state, despite Anderson officials' hopes, has no intention of buying the cemetery.
“Our primary function will be to facilitate the meeting in September,” Mr. Aldstadt said.
“It made me sick to see it,” he said of Hillcrest. “I don't know what the law is, but I think somebody should be prosecuted for what happened.”
He said a possible solution — which the state isn't calling for — is for a bill to be passed in the Ohio General Assembly, allowing the state to buy the cemetery and if the federal elected officials push the idea on a national level, Veteran's Affairs may come up with a way to fund it.
But Bill Jayne, director of the VA's state cemetery grants program, said Hillcrest doesn't meet criteria, primarily because it isn't state-owned.
A Cleveland veterans group also has said it will try to get Hillcrest a federal designation.
“We will take ownership provided the federal government would provide the funds,” said Tillman Bauknight, a member of the Huachuca Veterans Association of Cleveland.
That idea endures, as does the observation by neighbor Mr. Rea on his first visit to Hillcrest.
“They're vets,” he said, squinting in the sunlight. “They deserve respect.”
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